‘Care is a lifelong engagement’: Faculty of Arts and Science profiles Professor Ito Peng’s research.

The Faculty of Arts and Science at the University of Toronto profiled Professor Ito Peng and her research in May, 2023.

The article discusses the impact of COVID-19 on our care system, and the precarious status of Canada’s care system even prior to the pandemic.

It was one of the biggest lessons of COVID-19: when our care system grinds to a halt, society soon follows.

At the height of the pandemic, millions of children were exiled from schools and daycares around the world — leading to urgent care needs that revealed serious gender gaps in households and workplaces. And on the life cycle’s other end, the massive toll of COVID-related deaths in long-term care homes, especially in Canada early on, demonstrated the extent to which society’s most vulnerable citizens are regularly endangered.

But none of this surprised Ito Peng, who began her intensive study of global care work long before 2020. A much sought-after researcher and consultant to governments and policymakers in multiple countries, Peng is a professor in the Department of Sociology in the Faculty of Arts & Science, as well as the Canada Research Chair in Global Social Policy and director of the Centre for Global Social Policy.